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I’ve been thinking about the seven deadly sins recently. I was at a meeting a few weeks ago where some people mentioned the seven deadly sins, and there is a reference or two to the seven deadly sins in our sober literature.
I’ll be honest, I don’t love the moments when 12-step programs overlap with organized religion—I’ve mentioned before that I don’t say the Lord’s Prayer at meetings and choose to do a silent meditation of my choosing. But I also don’t get angry when people introduce religious stuff at meetings, as long as it’s within reason. And I think the seven deadly sins are within reason because it’s a pretty good list of things for me to watch out for, regardless of whether I go to church or not.
So I am going to define and rank the seven deadly sins. Before I rank them, though, I wanted to provide a quick little life hack. I can never remember what the seven sins are, until I heard a guy say at a meeting once that he uses the acronym PAGGLES to remember them: Pride, Anger (technically, it’s wrath but anger and wrath are pretty interchangeable), Greed, Gluttony, Lust, Envy, Sloth. Paggles!
I decided to rank them by the amount of harm they’ve done in my life. One big thing that jumped out to me is how much overlap there is. I don’t know exactly where the line between greed and gluttony is, and I rarely have anger that isn’t directly related to pride or envy or lust or any of the other ones. They all kind of play in the same PAGGLES sandbox together.
All right, here are my rankings, along with a quick definition of each one. I did use the Wikipedia page for the seven deadly sins, and we all know Wikipedia is always 100 percent right. But I read the entire page (it’s a pretty interesting read, by the way) and felt comfortable with those definitions.
I’m starting with the sin I think has caused the least amount of damage. I will say, though, that as I ranked these and settled on greed as No. 7, I did make a note that all seven have been really painful and bad in my life at various points. So this feels a little like breaking all your arms and legs and deciding that your broken left arm is your best broken bone of the four. They all are pretty bad!
—7. GREED: This is an unhealthy desire for things, and usually it is material goods. There’s probably some greed in wanting six or seven girlfriends instead of one, but that starts to drift into other sins, I guess.
I am greedy but not in a way where I want lots of clothes or cars or even money, so I put this last as the least problematic sin in my life. It was actually probably the easiest call on this list. The next six were a lot harder.
—6. ENVY: Envy is described as an insatiable desire, like lust and greed, and it involves coveting things from others. It can be their house or their spouse, but also can be the traits, abilities or rewards you see in others.
I definitely have some envy almost every day. But the Wikipedia page goes on to describe envy as a malicious desire for those things. I think I am more like someone who says, “Damn, that is an awesome boat. I wish I had a boat,” and that’s the end of it. I don’t find myself spending too much time wanting to be someone else or steal their wife or have all their stuff in a way that is more than a passing thought.
I will say, though, that I love the sober slogan about finding people who have what you want… but I chuckled about how that is pretty much envy, isn’t it? I actually find it to be helpful envy, if that makes sense. When I think about that phrase, I think about getting close with people who have what I want, in a spiritual sense, and how beneficial that has been for me to learn from them and try to model those positive behaviors in my life.
—5. WRATH/ANGER: This can be defined as uncontrolled anger, rage and sometimes hatred. And yes, to get to PAGGLES, you kind of have to cheat and sub in anger for wrath.
My first thought was to put this one pretty high, because I always have a rival or two (or 15) in my head who needs to be taught a lesson. And I do sometimes think that might involve slugging somebody. But I don’t actually do it. I don’t get to a place where I feel rage or hatred or want to actually stuff somebody in a locker. So I put this a little lower because it’s more of a passing thought than an actual thing in my life.
—4. GLUTTONY: This is overindulgence or over-use to the point of waste.
This one could have been any number on here. In active addiction, this was No. 1. I could not drink one beer or take two pills. I would sometimes have a night where I didn’t drink because I only had two beers in the fridge, because what is the point of two beers? I wanted to get blasted. It was either zero or 25, nothing in between.
I put this fourth, though, because I don’t have nearly as much gluttony these days. My food habits aren’t great, that’s for sure. But in the grand scheme of things, eating too many cookies every night isn’t the most pressing sin any more in my life. And recovery is really good at helping you know what’s too much in any aspect of my life. I’m not shy any more about going to my sober network and saying, “I’ve been drinking two 2-liters of Diet Coke every day for the past few weeks. Is that bad?” (The answer is yes, by the way. Turns out, a s**t-ton of soda is not the most physically healthy or spiritually fulfilling way for me to go through life.)
—3. LUST: It’s often associated directly with intense sexual desire, but it can also apply to anything you become obsessed with in an unhealthy way. So, alcohol, drugs, sex, money, power, promotions at work, etc.
I’m not going to get too deep into the sexual part of this—nobody needs those thoughts about me dancing through their heads today on that topic! But yes, lusting after things, from people to professional success and lots of stuff in between, is a huge problem. In my head, I associate this with being absolutely obsessed with something or someone, where you know you’re out of control but you can’t unplug from it. And that’s definitely been a part of my life and continues to be.
—2. SLOTH The definition of sloth was pretty muddy and hard to boil down. But in one spot, I saw it defined as a failure to do things one should do. I liked that. I always associate it with procrastination and being lazy, which also seems close to the right way to think about it.
I put this second but I also think I have lots of days where this is No. 1. I catch myself saying, “Nah, I don’t want to” about work stuff, or calling somebody back, or even getting out of bed at a reasonable time. I settled on second just because I have a good job, I do a lot with my kids, I go to the gym almost every day, I hit four or five meetings a week… so I have a pretty full life and rarely blow off important things any more. So I think when I say I am slothful, it’s more like I have a lot of sloth thoughts but actually usually work my way into doing them.
—1. PRIDE: Do you know what is most often considered the worst of all sins? Yep, pride, and it’s No. 1 on my list, too. In fact, there are lots of references over the centuries to people who consider pride to be the mother of all sins, and I found that in my own life. It’s hard to think about lust or sloth or gluttony and not see pride wrapped up in there somewhere.
Pride is sometimes described as the opposite of humility, and that really stood out to me. I think it’s probably impossible to have 100 percent humility and 0 percent pride, and I actually don’t think I want to even try to have no pride. I’ve had moments where taking pride in something is important, and also moments when someone oversteps and my pride is wounded and it’s important for me to stand up for myself.
But mostly, pride is the incubation lab for pretty much all my resentments and all of my lowest moments. I’ve heard it described as alcoholics often having huge egos and low self esteem, and that’s me. My pride goes up and down like the stock market—actually, the stock market is probably more stable than my big-baby personality.
So that’s it, my 2022 ranking of the seven deadly sins. I hope it sparked some internal conversation and profound thoughts within each and every reader… but at a bare minimum, I hope you will be saying PAGGLES to yourself for the rest of your life!
This newsletter is a place of joy and laughter about the deadly serious business of sobriety. So, as I will often do, let me close with a joke:
Sponsee: “When will I get a good job?”
Sponsor: “When you’re ready.”
Sponsee: “How will I know I’m ready?”
Sponsor: “When you have a good job.”
(Credit: AA Grapevine, Jan. 2000, “Ham on Wry,” by Anonymous)
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